


Chase

by Severina



Category: Live Free or Die Hard (2007)
Genre: Community: smallfandomfest, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-31
Updated: 2014-05-31
Packaged: 2018-01-27 17:17:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1718393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If they stand here much longer John knows he's going to reach out for Matt again, maybe say something stupid.  So he sticks his hands in his pockets, juts his chin toward the door.  "See ya, kid."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chase

**Author's Note:**

> Written for LJ's smallfandomfest for the prompt "John McClane, crazy motherfucker".
> 
> * * *

Matt shoulders his duffel bag when the taxi driver honks the horn, turns and swipes his palms down the front of his jeans. "So," he says, "I guess this is it."

John's been picturing this moment since Matt pulled out the classifieds and starting circling apartment rentals, but now that the time has come he feels woefully unprepared. "I guess so."

"Well. Thanks," Matt says. "You saved my life. And I don't mean the eight billion times that you actually saved my life, though I appreciate those too because breathing? Kind of a big deal. But also for letting me stay here, fronting the bill for the physio—"

"No problem, kid."

"For everything," Matt says.

John always jokes that Matt should never play card games because the kid's got the worst poker face known to mankind, but he can't read Matt now. He only knows that the kid's eyes are wide and unblinking, boring into him, and he can't look away. 

Then the bag is on the carpet and his arms are unexpectedly full of Matt. There's nothing reserved about the hug – no awkwardness or manly pats on the back or careful consideration of where their bodies touch – and after a moment John gives in to it despite his misgivings. Despite their shared resolve to never invite this kind of intimacy again. But Matt is warm against him, fingers curving into his shoulder blades, and he can't resist. He tugs the kid a little closer, tucks Matt neatly against his body. Inhales the scent of Matt and realizes suddenly that there will be no more bottles of hair product lined up on the bathroom windowsill, no more expensive deodorants and aftershaves sitting next to his reliable Old Spice. No more Matt taking up space in his life. 

No more Matt Farrell in his bed, because the one time was just too much beer and too little restraint. Just a stupid mistake.

The kid pulls away after a few moments, and John can admit to himself – if not to anyone else – that his arms already feel empty.

"Okay, I better…" Matt makes a vague motion toward the door.

"Yeah," John says, just as the cabbie honks again. He clears his throat, tells himself that his throat feels raw only because he's getting a cold, always gets one after the first damn storm of the winter. "Better go before he starts digging through your boxes and takes off with all your shit. He might hold your toys hostage."

Matt huffs out a breath. "For the last time, they're collectibles! And I was only able to rescue three of them from the wreckage, and one of them is so charred that—" 

Matt shakes his head, because apparently the loss of a couple of plastic action figures still has the ability to render him speechless. John makes a mental note to remember that the next time Matt is rambling about global warming while he's just trying to eat his damn cereal in peace, then abruptly remembers that they won't be sharing breakfast together anymore. Or dinner. Or anything at all. 

"I'm still holding you accountable for that, McClane."

"Yeah yeah," John says. "Next time I save your ass I'll make sure I go around and gather up all the _collectibles_ first."

"That would be appreciated," Matt says with a grin. He picks up his bag, glances over his shoulder. "So…"

If they stand here much longer John knows he's going to reach out for Matt again, maybe say something stupid. So he sticks his hands in his pockets, juts his chin toward the door. "See ya, kid."

The silence hits him before the taxi has even pulled away from the curb. He grabs a beer that he doesn't really want from the fridge, wanders into the living room. Takes in the barren coffee table that should be covered by Matt's tech-gizmo magazines, the mantle where two undamaged and one charred action figure used to sit, the folding card table in the corner that Matt's been using as a desk because John just never got around to lugging the old wooden one out of the basement. There should be a bag of cheez-its and a couple of half-empty Red Bull tins on that table, a tangle of cords, screens filled with incomprehensible gobbledygook and the noisy click-tap-click of Matt's fingers on the keyboard filling the room. 

There should be Matt, grinning at him over his shoulder when he complains about the racket that Matt calls music spilling from the computer's speakers and tossing his stupid hair and making his chest feel tight and his stomach do a slow, leisurely flip every time their eyes meet. 

He's made a huge mistake.

* * *

"God damnit!" John forces himself to relax his grip but still hunches over the wheel, eyes searching the crowded lanes. "How many fucking yellow cabs can there be in one city?"

He takes a sharp left at the next corner, smashes his foot down on the gas pedal and weaves across two lanes of traffic. He's dimly aware that about a dozen horns set up a cacophony as he passed, but his main focus is on scanning the cars in the lanes ahead. Cab – passenger's a redhead. Cute number, but not what he's looking for. Cab – empty. He bumps two wheels up on the sidewalk to pass a particularly slowly moving Volvo, narrowly misses the hot-dog cart on the corner and scowls at the finger that the vendor throws his way. "Who the fuck's buyin' hot dogs in the middle of December?" he calls out as he passes.

A couple of taxis up ahead. He strains to see and – yes, a familiar dark head of hair in the rear passenger seat.

The taxi is sitting at a red. He can make it. 

It's not too late. 

John darts a quick look in the rearview before cutting back across the middle lane, strains against the steering wheel when the old buick goes into a slide. He manages to pull out of it just as the light turns green and the cab accelerates; grits his teeth and tries to follow. The traffic light blinks over to red just as he reaches it. 

John slams his fist down on the steering wheel, watches as the taxi rolls almost out of sight.

He pictures Matt getting to that box in the sky he rented, a generic beige square with old lead pipes and a leaky kitchen sink. Imagines Matt directing the movers on where to put the threadbare sofa he picked up at Goodwill, sitting down to a lonely dinner of Mac and Cheese and listening to the clatter of the rats crawling through the walls. He pictures Matt crawling into bed alone.

Then he imagines himself crawling into bed alone, the tick of the Grandfather clock and the cold sheets and never once having to shout at Matt to shut down his damn programs and get to bed already.

"Fuck it," he mutters just before he floors it.

He flies into the oncoming traffic, wrenches the wheel and skids past a chevy and another taxi, cringes at the blast from the horns and the squeal of brakes… and then quickly realizes he's got nowhere to go. Traffic on the other side of the street is now backed up as far as he can see – and this time there's no park nearby to detour through. 

John glances ahead, can still see his quarry idling with the other cars in the curb lane. He has no choice. He squares his shoulders and aims his vehicle for the median. 

It would all be fine if not for the decorative snowman sculpture erected smack dab in the middle of the fucking median. There's a reason he's always hated Christmas.

He hits it going fifty, winces when the insipidly smiling decoration crashes against his windshield. For a moment he can see nothing but a whirling mass of white fluff and the crumpled orange plastic of a singularly long carrot nose. There's a crunch that he just knows is his muffler being ripped apart and then he's past the worst of it, the wipers taking care of the last of the sticky fluff, and the cab is there and nothing else matters and it was all worth it.

John slams to a stop and vaults out of the car. He slides across the crumpled and smoking hood, feels something pull and twist in his back, stumbles and nearly falls before he pulls himself up and slaps a palm against the rear window. 

"Stay!" he shouts.

The window rolls down slowly, revealing a shocked, pale face. "Excuse me?"

"Oh shit," John mutters.

"Uh. John?"

John jerks, smiles wanly at the very confused young lady in the taxi before turning slowly toward the other lane. Matt has already rolled down the window of his taxi – not the one he'd been chasing all this time at all, because apparently he's an idiot – and one of his caterpillar brows has already risen inquisitively. 

"Hey, kid," John says.

Matt looks over John's shoulder, gives a low whistle. John knows he's going to have to look at his car eventually, but right now is not the time. Now he can only look at Matt; can only see Matt. It's time he admitted that he never wants to let the kid out of his sight again.

"Stay," he says quietly. 

Matt smiles tentatively, and the tension that had kept John up at night, that had tightened his chest ever since the day that Matt pulled out those damned classifieds, loosens and is gone. He can breathe again.

Then Matt's brow furrows, and John bites down on the panic that starts to rise. "You're sure?" Matt asks. He glances again at the wreck of the car, lifts a shoulder and leans back in the vehicle. As if they've got all the time in the world. As if they're not surrounded by a mass of commuters mumbling and grumbling about the crazy man in the buick who nearly caused a five-car pile-up and who blatantly obliterated Frosty. As if they can't hear the sirens in the distance. "Because we have to be clear, John. We talked about… what happened between us, and—"

John reaches in through the open window, can feel Matt's hand trembling even beneath the ridiculous mittens he insists on wearing. "Stay," he repeats softly. 

When Matt smiles again, John knows there will be no generic apartment in Queens, no silent microwaved dinners and rodents in the walls. There will be conversation and laughter around the dinner table, bitching about trips to the farmers market for organic produce, convincing Matt that the treadmill at the gym doesn't have it in for him and really won't buck him off another time. There will be reality shows on the big screen instead of ESPN, and pretending not to be amused when Matt mocks the contestants. There will be slow, gentle touches and murmured words, warm sheets and falling into bed with someone he loves. 

"Take me home, John," Matt says. 

John nods, squeezes his hand because he doesn't trust that he can speak.

They can do this. As long as he can find his voice and talk himself out of jail when the cops show up.


End file.
